Rick Mercer Calls Out Canada's Conservative Party for Doctored Quote

Rick Mercer has been lauded in Canada for his many years of lampooning this country's politicians regardless of affiliation. However, the political satirist finds having his words doctored by the Conservative Party of Canada to be no laughing matter.

On Twitter today, Mercer was alerted to a Facebook post published by the Burnaby North-Seymour Conservative Constituency Association, which pictured himself alongside an altered quote ripped from one of his Rick Mercer Report rants.

The post, which has since been deleted, has been archived below. Mercer's "Vote!" segment, which aired in 2011 and can also be found online, finds him appealing to young people about participating in the democratic process.

"If you're between the age of 18 and 25, and you want to scare the hell out of the people that run this country, this time around do the unexpected," Mercer says in the rant. "Take 20 minutes out of your day and do what young people all around the world are dying to do. Vote."

The page altered Mercer's quote by changing his final line to "Vote Conservative," posting the photo along with the caption "words of wisdom." Users on Twitter and in the original post's comments were quick to acknowledge the blatant falsification of both Mercer's quote.

On Twitter, Mercer reached out to Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer to inquire further.

"Your candidate in Burnaby North Seymour is distributing a Meme on social media with my face and the words 'Vote Conservative' indicating it is a quote from me. Not true. All fake. Please Stop," Mercer wrote, including hashtags "#WhoAreThesePeople?" and "#yuck."

He told another user that the post and quote are "Not real. Just a straight up fake by the candidate."

Users soon pointed out that questionable social media usage is not exactly uncommon for the Burnaby North-Seymour Conservative Constituency Association.

A cursory scroll through the page turns up an unfounded allegation that Prime Minister Trudeau is "influencing the election," a number of links to far-right media site the Rebel, climate change denial from AmericanThinker.com, and photos of candidate Heather Leung campaigning alongside aggrieved free speech warrior Lindsay Shepherd.

Earlier this month, the page posted an anti-Liberal meme that saw supporters call for the death of Trudeau. Local publication BurnabyNOWnoted that the post was left up for a matter of days, and that Leung had refused all requests for comment.